~ around China and other countries

Doors & Doorways of China (1) – PRC – 2010-2014

I know a lot of people love doorways and doors; I am not sure what the attraction is but I really love them too. Throughout my travels around China I saw many bright and interesting doors and doorways and not only the that, I was also very interested in the sculptures placed at the doors’ entrance. So I might post some photos and a little bit of information about the sculptures. So here we go…

Many doors around China have drum-shaped stone sculptures which are usually placed in pairs at the entrance of the house. There are two shapes – round and a door-guarding lion. Let’s see the drums first…

The drum surface is usually carved with embossed patterns of flowers, grass, animals and deity animals. However lions and lotus as the most commonly used patterns.

Though as we know, the priority of a door is to keep the house safe, in ancient China, to decorate it was an important way to show the house owners social status.

So now onto the lions…Chinese guardian lions can be found at the doorways and always in pairs, a male on the left and a female on the right. The male is always with its right claw over an embroidered ball to represent power. And under the left claw of the female can be found a baby lion, which is said to represent the family will have many offspring.

Statues of guardian lions have traditionally stood in front of Chinese Imperial palaces and many other places including temples and the homes of government officials and the wealthy and were believed to have powerful mythic protective benefits. But I must say the two I brought home from Beijing really have no mythical power; they just look nice outside my home in Australia – well I hope they do anyway…

So back to some nice doors I found in China; colourful and just interesting…hope you find that too…